Its customers and employees know, but the rest of the world may not quite have realized that Porsche now sells six separate plug-in hybrid models. They span three different vehicles—the Porsche Panamera large sedan, the Panamera Sport Turismo shooting brake, and the Cayenne sport utility vehicle—and a pair of powertrains for each. In...

In the fall of 2014, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart released the results of the Community Attitudes on Sexual Assault (CASA) survey, an online survey that was sent to all MIT undergraduates and graduate students to better understand the extent and effects of sexual misconduct at MIT. With information and insights from CASA in hand, the administration has been partnering with students, faculty, and staff to …

Florida is set to get a lot more solar power and grid batteries, in exchange for losing a future nuclear power plant.
On Tuesday, Duke Energy Florida filed a revised settlement that lays out a four-year, nearly $6 billion investment into 700 megawatts of solar PV, 50 megawatts of energy storage, 500 electric vehicle chargers, and smart meters and grid modernization …

California's largest net-zero energy housing development is coming next year to the Central Valley.
Third-generation homebuilder De Young Properties unveiled the 36-home project Tuesday in Clovis, northeast of Fresno. The company has spent years redesigning its signature floor plans to include cost-effective energy efficiency improvements. The goal is to minimize the building's electrical load, and install enough rooftop solar to cover what remains, matching consumption and production over the year.
In …

They came in droves to witness the moon blocking the sun.
On Aug. 21 at MIT's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts; at the MIT Wallace Observatory; and in eastern Idaho, members of the MIT community, and the public at large, gathered to watch what was hailed by many as the Great American Solar Eclipse — a solar eclipse that could be seeen across North America.
The MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) hosted the main event on campus, at the Kresge Oval. Armed with solar glasses and …

We are getting a clearer picture of the Energy Department's direction under Secretary Perry.
In the four months after Perry requested special report on threats to baseload power plants, we saw an unprecedented number of prebuttals from groups worried that it would assist in President Trump's mission to revive the coal industry.
We finally got the end result last week. While some environmental groups didn't like the report, it was a straightforward account of the factors changing the grid -- not a booster …

A team of scientists from Germany and the United States has determined that rising temperatures due to climate change will have a dramatic impact on Europe's electricity consumption patterns, culminating in putting extra strain on European power grids.
Climate Change To Dramatically Shift European Electricity Consumption was originally published on

Nissan, Renault and Dongfeng have created a new joint venture that will design and build a small electric SUV that sells for $8,000 in China
Renault, Nissan, & Dongfeng To Build $8,000 Electric Car In China was originally published on CleanTechnica.
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You've probably heard about the solar eclipse that will pass across the U.S. on August 21.
But if you're in the solar industry -- whether a manufacturer, contractor or service provider -- you're no doubt aware of a much more significant eclipse: the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) case on imported crystalline-silicon solar cells and modules.
You may think that this industry eclipse is not a big deal, or someone else's problem. You're wrong. It's time to break out your Peril Sensitive …

It's been 10 years since Google shifted its attention from bits and bytes toward the world of therms and electrons.
It started with a wide-ranging investment and R&D initiative, called RE<C, designed to make renewables cheaper than coal. That initiative was abandoned in 2011 after engineers realized they were tackling the wrong problems.
Today, new renewables are …

If the temporary blotting out of the sun next week magnifies an inherent weakness of solar power, it also plays to the strengths of energy storage.
Advanced energy storage technologies have the ability to charge or discharge at a moment's notice to shore up the needs of the grid. Whether or not the market structures exist to fully capitalize on those abilities is another question.
There's little grid storage to speak of directly on the path of totality, where the sun will be entirely covered for a period of …